Hi, I am planing on doing a sunrise to sunset timelapse for a short drama film I am working on. I have a compass but need to know exactly where the sun rires and sets (in degrees) so I can frame the sequence. Had a look on the internet and cant find anything;(.

Ben

Ben -

A very handy tool for planning sun/moon rise/set times/azimuths and sky location is the Photographer's Ephemeris.

It's a free download for Mac/PC. Find it here:
http://photoephemeris.com/

You can also use free online astronomical utilities found here:
http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications

Good lapsing -- Bill

Ben -

p.s. don't forget to take into account magnetic declination (difference between magnetic north and true north) when using your compass to locate rise/set points;
info here: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/declination.shtml

Bill

This one may be interesting too, its in german language but very simple to use, just choose your location on the map, specify the date and you get angle and time of sunrise and sunset:

www.sonnenverlauf.de

Do you have an iPhone? There is an app called 'Sun Seeker'. Don't know if it's also available for Android.

   

Photopills is the latest and greatest (but only for iphone). It has an expanded functionality over The Photographers Ephemeris and is in my opinion better designed. These are the only two peices of software you should consider in my personal opinion.

I would also suggest that using a compass introduces very significant inaccuracies. Unless you have a very good compass you probably cant take a bearing that has an accuracy of better than +- 2 degrees.

A much better alternative is to figure out exactly where you need to be relative to your landmark using either The Photographers Ephemeris or Photopills and then use a GPS device to put yourself in that location. If you have a smartphone with GPS then you can do it all using your phone.

I have lots of experience planning images both with compasses maps and bearings and with TPE/Photopills and using a gps is much easier and more precise.